


The Bringer of the End

by Footloose



Series: Blue Night Drabbles [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, sex as currency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:02:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Footloose/pseuds/Footloose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur searches the world for Emrys, the prophesized Bringer of the End, and he will do anything to convince him to end the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my entry for [Challenge #2](http://summerpornathon.livejournal.com/79090.html) of [Summerpornathon](http://http://summerpornathon.livejournal.com), which was Fuck Or Die/Post-Apocalypse. I went with a Post-Apocalyptic world.
> 
> Again, Chapter 1 is my original 750 word entry; Chapter 2 is the full(er) version.

  


* * *

Two generations past, the world ended in a battle lost to dragonsbreath and witchfire and the flint-flame at the hand of Man unwilling to bow to either side. Cities decimated, homesteads burned, society sundered from civilized law and freedom for all until all that was left was a sort of Wild West justice and survival of the fittest.

During every hard year of Arthur Pendragon's life, there were whispers of a saviour, a man who could bend the dragons to his will and shatter sorcerous curses with a wave of his hand. And every year, the skies remained dark with dragons, the land continued to be tormented with black magic, and a heart once full of hope died a little more.

Then, one day, Arthur learned that the man had a name.

_Emrys._

The name alone stirred a yearning long believed gone. It plagued Arthur's dreams. Night after night, he would wake drenched in sweat and drowning with desire, his cock so hard and aching that he knew he'd never find true release until he had Emrys around him, moaning in ecstasy.

Arthur's father forbade him from undertaking this fruitless search, and fruitless it was. Hovel after hovel of human habitation. The last reaches of rebellion, starved and mad. Sorcerer's cities where he had to skulk in shadows lest he be found out. Passage through dragon fiefs at twilight and sunrise when their senses were slow and sluggish. Not once had he left any place without needing to fight his way out. 

He was running short of ammunition. His strength was flagging. His faith was fading. But he was too far from home to give up now.

There were eyes on him as he walked through the makeshift main street of yet another ramshackle village. The first kid he caught squirmed and kicked and bit, but when Arthur asked, "Blacksmith?", the kid pointed a finger and was rewarded with freedom.

The smithy was suffocating with welcome heat against the perpetual chill. There was a blaze of billows, of fire lashing and licking like dragonsbreath. There was the steady, rhythmic pound of hammer and the popping hiss of steaming water tempering steel. There was a man in front of the forge, his shoulders broad, his body lean, short black hair in damp, unruly spikes. He wore no apron to cover a sinewy torso, no gloves to protect his hands from the scorching heat. His skin glistened with soot and grease and sweat, every smear highlighting whipcord strength. The muscles in his back rippled with every heft of the hammer, went taut with every strike. The curve of his spine trailed down to a firm ass barely covered by leather pants hanging desperately on narrow hips.

Arthur's mouth went dry at the sight of him. 

The man tossed his work in the quenching trough. "What do you want?"

His voice was a low, low rumble, like a sleepy dragon awakening. Arthur swallowed hard. He knew better than to ask for ammunition in a place like this -- every bullet was worth a daughter's dowry. Instead, he said, "I've a splint in my sword."

"Give it here, then."

The man left his hammer on the table. He pulled the black goggles from his eyes to study the blade. "A few hours of work. You can pay?"

Arthur froze at those bright, beautiful blue eyes, those sharp cheekbones, those red, full lips. He knew them from his dreams.

_Emrys._

"I can pay," Arthur said, but his hand didn't drift toward the cut brass he had hidden on his person. Instead, his eyes followed the trail of fine black hair down the blacksmith's chest. 

"I take payment up front."

When Arthur looked up, Emrys wore a small smirk on his lips and his head was tilted toward a door.

Arthur was so aroused that he could barely walk to follow Emrys to a small, back room with little else but a cot and a wash bowl. He was on his knees with Emrys against the wall, leather breeches tugged down around his thighs, Emrys' cock already angry and red and aching for release, before either of them could change their minds.

"Fuck, you're really gagging for it, aren't you?" Emrys' eyes were a blue so black they gleamed, and Arthur thought he saw a glimmer of gold before Emrys grabbed his hair and _yanked_ , guiding Arthur toward his cock.

_For you. Only for you._

Arthur swallowed him down.


	2. Chapter 2

  


* * *

The latest patrol had left the castle a week ago. They were limping back now with only a quarter of the number who had gone out, and those who were still able-bodied were leading horses with empty saddles or slouching riders.

Arthur clenched his jaw. He turned from the concrete ramparts and went to see what he could do to help.

He wasn't a healer, but at the very least, he could help carry the wounded.

#

"Two generations past, the world ended in a battle lost to dragonsbreath and witchfire and the flint-flame at the hand of Man unwilling to bow to either side. Cities were decimated, homesteads burned down, and society was sundered from civilized law and freedom for all until all that remains is a sort of Wild West justice and survival of the fittest."

It was a familiar story and Arthur had heard it recited once a week for more than two decades. It had given him something to look forward to when the nights were streaked ochre from dragonsbreath and the fortress' walls were dark lest they attract the attention of the witches crossing the countryside. The stories were a reward for keeping silent and calm in a time of gloom and dread. Arthur hadn't known what most of the words of those stories even meant until he was much older and saw pictures of the things that Gaius described.

Gaius peered down at the children gathered at his feet. He'd been a boy when the dragons and the sorcerers clashed, but he never spoke about those times except to gloss over the fine details of how, why, and whom. 

This story was special. It rarely changed. One generation became two. The Wild West became the Borderlands and returned to Wild West within a few tellings, because the children liked the filmvid Wild West cowboys better than the far-too-real outlaws raiding the No Man's Land between the claimed Dragon territory and the witches' cities. And sometimes, Gaius would give the children and the men of Camelot a sprinkle of courage when he spoke of salvation.

During every hard year of Arthur Pendragon's life, there were whispers of a saviour, a man who could bend the dragons to his will and shatter sorcerous curses with a wave of his hand. And every year, the skies remained dark with dragons, the land continued to be tormented with black magic, and a heart once full of hope died a little more.

Arthur did not listen to Gaius' stories. He couldn't bear to listen to them. But tonight, after seeing so many men lost, after hearing the disheartening information from his men, Arthur needed something, anything, some sort of spark, to keep him going in the enduring darkness.

"He's real," Leon said quietly, far too quietly for anyone to hear. 

Arthur jerked his head in a sharp nod, muffling his scoff, and glanced at his friend sidelong. Leon was one of the few to have survived the encounter with the witches that left too many widows and fatherless children behind.

"He's real, Arthur. You have to believe it, because the witches do," Leon said again, leaning against Arthur's shoulder, trying to stop him from leaving. Leon's voice was heavy with urgency. "The witches -- they're hunting him."

Arthur shot the darkest look he could manage at Leon, hoping to silence him. He pushed Leon out of his way and thundered down the hall, hating his oldest friend for trying to bolster his spirit where his spirit had already gone. Arthur made it as far as the second level, just past one of the shuttered murder holes, when Leon caught up to him.

Leon's fingers could be felt even through the nanofibre armour that Gaius manufactured in the basement laboratory. "One of the witches lived long enough to tell me his name, Arthur."

Arthur stilled and half-turned. He held his breath, even though he knew he should know better than to hang his heart on something, on some _one_ who was nothing but fable and fiction. "I don't care."

"Yes, you do. You care more than anyone here. You've been praying to him since we first heard the story," Leon said. He leaned in, and his breath brushed Arthur's hair. "His name is Emrys."

Arthur wrenched his arm away. "That's not a name. That's a promise."

He walked the north side of Camelot's walls with nothing but moonlight and starlight and the searing remnant of purple witchfire in the sky to keep him company, his thoughts haunted by the idea of a man who didn't exist. Who couldn't exist.

_Emrys._

In one of the old tongues, _Emrys_ meant _the bringer of the end_. It could equally mean _the first breath of the light_ in another.

The name alone stirred a yearning long believed gone. It plagued Arthur's dreams. Day after day, he would stare out at the distant horizon just as the sun set over the distant mountains, barely visible over the sulphuric smoke of the magma brought to the surface of the earth by the dragons, and let himself feel his faith again.

Only a little.

The weeks passed in relative calm, and Arthur sat and listened to Gaius' story again, waiting for the part where he recounted the prophecy even he couldn't source, where the saviour would find a leader of men, and the two together would stop the war and bring balance to the earth.

Arthur remembered this part of the story differently than from when he was a boy. In those days, Gaius told stories of a sorcerer and his King.

When the children had played in the yard on one of the safe days, Arthur had always pretended that he was that King, that the others were his Knights, that they were fighting the enemy. Only, he had no sorcerer.

"Sorcerer" became "saviour" the night they lost two hundred men protecting Camelot, and Arthur's father couldn't bear the thought that their fate laid in the hand of a witch who was no better than the rest of them.

 _Emrys_.

Arthur couldn't get the name out of his mind. It was on the tip of his tongue during conversations. It haunted the edge of his hearing. The one time he spoke the name out loud, it had raised gooseflesh on his skin. And, night after night, he woke drenched in sweat and drowning with desire, his cock so hard and aching that he knew he'd never find true release until he had Emrys around him, moaning in ecstasy.

Then, one day, he made his decision. It took weeks before he secretly gathered all that he would need to go. But in the end, he couldn't leave without saying good-bye.

"I'm leaving," Arthur told his father at the breakfast table. The meal was stewed roots and overcooked grains pulverized into a thick mush and sweetened with the honey from one of the farmers far afield. It was foul. He did not grieve that he might never taste its like again.

"The east patrols?" Uther asked, barely looking up. No one looked up -- none except for Leon, who had divined something of what Arthur had been doing.

"No. I need to find him," Arthur said.

"Who?"

"You know who," Arthur said, finishing the last of his meal. He stood up and took an extra roll of the coarse barley bread. "I'll be gone by morning."

Arthur's father forbade him from undertaking this fruitless search, and fruitless it was. He traveled through hovel after hovel of human habitation. He found the last reaches of rebellion, starved and mad. He risked witch cities where he had to skulk in shadows lest he be found out. He took passage through dragon fiefs at twilight and sunrise when their senses were slow and sluggish. Not once had he left any place without needing to fight his way out. 

He had been searching for months, hunting down every rumour, every murmur.

Arthur was running short of ammunition. His strength was flagging. His faith was fading. But he was too far from home to give up now. He had a name.

 _Emrys_.

The name gave him strength. It drove him.

There were eyes on him as he walked through the makeshift main street of yet another ramshackle village. The first kid he caught squirmed and kicked and bit, until Arthur shook the fight out of him.

"You've got a blacksmith here?" Arthur asked.

The kid narrowed his eyes. "What's it to you?"

"You tell me where he is, I'll let you go," Arthur promised. For most kids, that was enough -- in the outskirts, even the children could be victims of slavery. Or worse.

The kid pointed a dirty finger down the road. Arthur dropped him to the ground and headed that way.

The smithy was suffocating with welcome heat against the perpetual chill. There was a blaze of billows, of fire lashing and licking like dragonsbreath. There was the steady, rhythmic pound of hammer and the popping hiss of steaming water tempering steel. There was a man in front of the forge, his shoulders broad, his body lean, short black hair in damp, unruly spikes. He wore no apron to cover a sinewy torso, no gloves to protect his hands from the scorching heat. His skin glistened with soot and grease and sweat, every smear highlighting whipcord strength. The muscles in his back rippled with every heft of the hammer, went taut with every strike. The curve of his spine trailed down to a firm ass barely covered by leather pants desperately hanging onto narrow hips.

Arthur's mouth went dry at the sight of him. 

The man tossed his work in the quenching trough. "What do you want?"

His voice was a low, low rumble, like a sleepy dragon awakening. Arthur swallowed hard. He knew better than to ask for ammunition in a place like this -- every bullet was worth a daughter's dowry. Instead, he said, "I've a splint in my sword."

"Give it here, then."

The man left his hammer on the anvil. He pulled the black goggles from his eyes to study the blade. "More than just a splint. It's a few hours of work if you want a true edge again. You can pay?"

He met Arthur's eyes with a steady gaze.

Arthur froze at those bright, beautiful blue eyes, those sharp cheekbones, those red, full lips. 

_Emrys._

The name sang in Arthur's soul.

"I can pay," Arthur said, his voice thick. He was frozen; his hand didn't drift toward the cut brass he had hidden on his person. Instead, his eyes followed the trail of fine black hair down the blacksmith's chest. 

He studied the muscle on the man's lean frame. The hint of ribs at his side, the defined lines of his stomach, the hipbone jutting out from the low-riding leather pants.

There was a long silence, the sound of a cleared throat, an amused, interested, "I take payment up front."

Arthur's head snapped up. There was a small smirk on Emrys' lips. He tilted his head toward a door in a gesture Arthur couldn't miss.

He cleared his throat with difficulty. "You do good work?"

"Depends how well one pays," Emrys said.

"I can pay. Very well." Arthur managed not to blush too much.

Emrys eyed Arthur up and down, a fringe of black hair falling into his eyes. Abruptly, he nodded. "Like I said, I take payment up front."

He moved around the front counter, past Arthur, and pounded a fist on the wall. The latch fell with a heavy thump.

Emrys headed for the door without looking at Arthur.

Arthur was so aroused that he could barely walk to follow Emrys to a small, back room with little else but a cot and a wash bowl. There was a small square window with cheap, frosted glass filtering a dull light onto the far wall, the ratty curtains pushed aside to let it all in. A tiny trunk was propped open and there was a small pile of clothing rolled-up. There was a bowl, a spoon, a glass. A knife was stuck into the space just over a bundle of furs that doubled as a pillow. Several nubs of candles littered the room.

Emrys wiped his hands on a dirty towel by the washbowl to get rid of most of the soot before dipping them into the water. He splashed his face and wiped it off on a square that was relatively clean.

"You're new in town."

"Isn't much of a town," Arthur said.

"There's enough to it to keep me busy. Didn't plan on stayin' on this long," Emrys said.

"So I'm not the only one just passing through?"

Emrys shrugged a shoulder. The muscles in his back rippled with the movement. "The last smith tried to be a hero durin' a slaver raid. Town's been without someone at the billows for the better part of the year. Came by, traded a month's work for food and shelter."

 _And privacy,_ Arthur heard, though Emrys didn't say it out loud. "And how long has it been?"

Emrys' laugh was deep and rumbling. "Goin' on four."

"Keeping you busy, then," Arthur said, dropping his pack down by the door.

"Takin' advantage of, more like," Emrys said, casting a sidelong look at Arthur through thick eyelashes. "Figure I may as well take some advantage of my own."

Arthur's heart thrummed in his chest.

"You got a place to stay yet?" Emrys asked.

Arthur shook his head. "Just walked in."

Emrys waved to the cot. "It's not much. You'd have to share."

"And pay?" Arthur asked.

Emrys moved to stand in front of Arthur, his clean hands stark against arms still streaked with dirt, his face still smeared here and there despite the wash.

"Negotiable," Emrys said. "I'll settle for body heat and someone to talk to. Not much news of the rest of the world out this way. Maybe a fuck or two."

"Seems like a steep price for a night," Arthur said, though he already knew he would stay as long as Emrys did.

"Well. I can always fix the rest of your gear," Emrys said with a smirk. "And dependin' how good a fuck you are, maybe throw in some ammo, too. Looks like you could use some."

Arthur exhaled slowly and nodded. "Couldn't we all?"

"Why don't we take care of the payment up front, first, yeah?" Emrys suggested. "What did you have in mind?"

 _A lot of things, actually,_ Arthur wanted to say, but instead, he manoeuvred Emrys against the wall and silenced the startled gasp with a rough kiss. Emrys made another sound, either of compliance or need, Arthur wasn't sure which and didn't much care, because Emrys answered Arthur's kiss with one of his own.

Emrys seemed content to let Arthur take the lead. Arthur kissed. Emrys kissed back. Arthur parted his lips and tugged at one of Emrys'. He tasted the man's mouth and chased after his tongue. He nuzzled his throat and licked along the pulse, tasting the bitter tang of metallic ash.

Emrys rumbled a laugh when Arthur wiped off his tongue.

"Don't you ever wash?"

"When I'm done working," Emrys said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "I'm not all dirty, you know."

Arthur watched as Emrys slid his thumbs in the waistband of his leather pants, revealing a line of white, gorgeous skin.

Arthur tugged them down the rest of the way, falling to his knees, worshipping the thick cock that was just as perfect as the rest of Emrys.

"Fuck, you're really gagging for it, aren't you?" Emrys' eyes were a blue so black they gleamed, and Arthur thought they turned gold before Emrys grabbed his hair and _yanked_ , guiding Arthur toward his cock.

Arthur didn't resist. He parted his lips and took Emrys in, sucking the head, tasting a salty tang that mingled with a curious spice and a warm, heady scent that was unmistakably _Emrys_. 

He stroked Emrys' length while he paid attention to its head, swirling his tongue around it until he felt Emrys' hand in his hair slack and the tension ease in his body. He drew circles around the cock, coating it in spit, slicking it up while he stroked his hand up and down.

Emrys' groin hitched, pumping into Arthur's mouth a little. Arthur palmed those hipbones, rubbing them with his thumbs, digging his fingers into the muscular flesh beneath, and used his mouth to take Emrys in bit by bit until he could swallow him down all the way.

The moan from above only increased the discomfort in Arthur's breeches.

He took his time, savouring the moment. This was _Emrys_. Arthur had dreamed of meeting him. Of tumbling into bed with him. Of performing all sorts of wanton acts. Each time, he had awakened with a sticky mess in his blankets, struggling to cling to the memory of hazy, ephemeral images.

They had nothing compared to the real thing. He hadn't had a face nor a body to give Emrys until now.

Emrys' hand returned to Arthur's hair, combing and brushing with a light touch before grabbing hold and forcing Arthur to suck faster and deeper. Arthur gagged only once in surprise, tears welling up in his eyes, and he slackened his jaw, letting Emrys do as he wanted.

Arthur was pulled off so suddenly that he blinked his eyes open in time to see Emrys taking his cock in hand and stroking himself. The first pulse of come hit Arthur's cheek, the second, his mouth. 

Arthur moaned. His cock twitched, and the pressure in against his cock eased, wet and sticky.

He became aware of a distant pounding on the door to the forge, of a tender finger wiping the come from his face, of Emrys exhaling in aggravation and shouting, "You fuckin' wankers, can't a man have a break? I'll be right there!"

Emrys pulled up his pants and left Arthur on his knees, going for the door. He paused, and said, "There's a makeshift shower out back, if you want."

Arthur waited until the door shut before licking the come from his face.


End file.
